Here’s a fun wooden shadow box I made recently. I painted the box grey and then painted crackle paint over that and then inked it to add some more age to it. I had some neat silver tinsel garland and adhered that around the edges of the box. Inside the box I turned an image of a little girl into a witch by adding a black hat and broom and also added a silver smiling moon charm and some black alphabet beads that spell out “Happy Halloween”.
I’ve really been inspired lately by all the collages I’ve seen that are various shades of white, I love the “shabby” look of it. So I thought I’d give it a try. I white washed most of the items with gesso, sometimes adding water sometimes just straight from the bottle. First I white washed some vintage music paper and an image of a blue bird, then stamped the bird cage on transparency using white, I adhered the bird to the paper and then using my sewing machine I stitched the transparency onto the paper using different stitches. I then white washed a pair of Tim Holtz’ grungeboard wings (if you don’t know grungeboard is sort of a flexible type of chipboard, it’s very cool to work with), tied some string through a vintage button, added them to the board along with the words “spread your wings” and then added some vintage white lace across the bottom. It’s a very different look for me but I like it alot:)
I love the shape of a house as a base for a collage, it’s warm and well, so homey:) I just finished this collage on canvas board, the background on the board is layers of Tim Holtz’ crackled paint with several colors of ink rubbed over top of the paint. I cut the shape of the house and chimney from vintage book paper, I inked the edges to make it more aged looking and added a strip from a vintage tape measure as the base of the house. I cut the roof out of black cardstock that has a white core, I then sanded it to bring out some of the white and make it look more shabby. I made a copy of a lovely Victorian photograph I have and mounted it in the middle of the house using black photo corners. I had a small piece left from timming the tape measure and added it like a house number. Before I attached the roof I added some letters cut from an vintage book, small brads and sewed on a large metal key. I think a collage like this would be the perfect house warming gift for someone moving into a new home.
I found a really neat black and white illustration of a frog in a vintage children’s book and thought he’d make a great friend for one of my fairies:) I made a copy of him and colored him with colored pencils and then added a sweet fairy holding a rhinestone wand hopping a ride on his back. I also added a mushroom, frogs and mushrooms just go together, right? 🙂 They are sitting on a hill of polka dotted paper and the background is vintage book paper that’s been white washed. I hung it on a cute metal hanger and added the word “Dream”.
Sorry it’s been so long since my last post, my husband was on vacation so I decided to take a little break from creating and recharge a bit:)
Here’s a couple of fun altered collages pieces of fairies caught inside glass jars. I made the collage of the a fairy on a vintage book page and inserted it into a canning jar (the kind with no writing imprinted on them) and tucked some fake grass and paper flowers inside the bottom of the jar. I then aged a tag and stamped some neat sentiments on them, one says “Evidence” the other says “Dept of Antiquities” and tied them around the jars with cool ribbons. The lid of the jar was too shiny and new looking for me so I used a sponge and added some black permanent ink to age them up a bit.
I’ve made a few more Alice in Wonderland themed Art Cards (cards measuring 3 1/2″ x 2 1/2″).
This first one is an image of Alice peering over the edge of the mushroom to talk to the Caterpillar while he smokes his hookah. The image is colored with colored pencils and I added “grass” at the base of the mushroom and ran a thin strip of cardstock through my label maker for the words “Who Are You” floating above them.
For this next card I put the image of Alice looking at her reflection in the looking glass directly on a piece of glass and colored on the backside with markers. I also rimmed the edge of the glass with a gold pen.
Here’s a few soldered glass pendants I did this week, each with a nature theme.
This one is an illustration from a vintage children’s book from 1929, it’s a sweet girl kneeling in the water at the ocean’s edge and she’s holding up a star fish, I added the words “mermaid dreams” cut from a vintage dictionary.
This one is also from a vintage children’s book, it’s a fawn running through the forest and I added the words “Oh, deer”.
This last one is a illustration from a really cool nature book from 1934, it’s a spiders web in a meadow, there’s even a tiny spider in the web, I think it’s a really unique and lovely illustration.
My mom recently came back from Florida (were she was born) and brought back some really neat tiny sea shells and ask if I wanted some for my artwork and of course I did:) I used them in this fun little collage of a mermaid laying on the beach. I love mermaids almost as much as I do fairies:) I took a vintage image of a lady in a swimsuit and cut off her legs and added the tail of a fish from a vintage nature book, they didn’t really “match” so I wrapped some rickrack around her waist and it helped to tie the two halves of her together (sounds like Dr. Frankenstein or something, hehe) I inked up the small canvas (which is 3 3/4″ 2 3/4″) with various shades of blues, greens and yellows and wrapped yellow grosgrain ribbon around the edges to hide the staples. I tore and sanded cardstock for the beach, attached the mermaid and then added real sand mixed with Tim Holtz’s glitter glue for a very realistic looking beach. I then added those great shells from my mom and stamped and cut out a plaque and added the words “A day at the beach” cut from a vintage book. Makes me wish I was at the beach!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone! We always celebrate in my family because we’ve got a lot of Irish ancestors and it’s also my brother’s birthday. When we were little we always left a piece of cake out for the leprechauns 🙂
Sadly I don’t have anything green to share but instead it’s blue. It’s a bird shrine box. I took a small wooden box with a hinged and latched lid that also has a wire screen in the front and painted it blue then used Tim Holtz’ crackle paint and distress inks to age the box. I added a tiny tag to the front door with the word “fly” cut from a vintage book. Inside I made a tiny collage from an image of a blue jay on some vintage music paper and over the door added the words “three blue eggs” also from a vintage book. My favorite part is the tiny wire nest I made and glued inside. I took a very long piece of thin blue wire and ran three blue speckled beads onto the middle and just started wrapping the wire around and around and then pushing it down around the sides of the beads to form a nest shape. It’s the first one I’ve made and I think I’ll probably be going to get lots of wire to make more:) Then finally I glued three vintage game piece to the bottom for feet.
Here’s a pretty little collage I made this week. I got some really neat pewter crown charms and added one to an image of a sweet girl along with the word “queen”. I mounted her on paper from a vintage Italian book and black and brown cardstock. I aged a very cool metal embossed frame I had with some brown ink and mounted it all on a piece of chipboard for some stability and added a metal hanger to the back. I think it’s got a simple but very elegant look to it.
